Influence of Fe Films in the Growth of Carbon Nanotubes by Chemical Vapor Deposition

The metal catalyst plays an important role in the preparation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). In this work, we prepared Fe film catalyst layer by electron beam evaporation method, and studied its influence in the growth process of CNTs by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method via adjusting the thickness of layer, annealing temperature and annealing time. The obtained results demonstrate that the thickness, annealing temperature and annealing time of catalyst layer play significant role in the growth of CNTs. Under the same growth condition, the longest CNTs (about 234μm) can be obtained when the 2nm thick Fe catalyst layer was annealed at 700°C for 10min. These results provide a certain research basis for the related application filed of CNTs. (paper)